FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT, 1868.

thereby visibly diminishing the ranks of "able-bodied, sturdy and valiant beggars."

It has gathered the children from the different State Almshouses into that at Monson, where they are mainly free from the damaging effects of being closely herded with adult paupers, and insane, idiotic, and depraved persons. It has there built up one of the largest and most interesting Schools in the Commonwealth; and changed the relation of five hundred children from antagonism to friendship with society. It has turned their faces from the vicious course they were about entering, and . set them in the path of virtue.

It has been instrumental in procuring such legislation concerning the laws of settlement, and of the maintenance of paupers liable to come upon State charge, as has diminished their number considerably, and will diminish it still more.

It has brought about a system of supervision and protection of children apprenticed out from the several State Almshouses and Reformatories, which was sadly needed; and without which many of the wards of the Commonwealth could justly lay at her door the guilt of their becoming criminals or paupers.

It has been mainly instrumental in opening the first Institution in America for teaching the method of articulation to such deaf mutes as could learn to use human speech, instead of the lower form of language commonly taught to those unfortunates.

It ought to be added that for these and other important changes and improvements in which it has been the good fortune of the Board to be instrumental, the credit is mainly due to the late General Agent, Dr. H. B. Wheelwright, and to the late Secretary, Mr. F. B. Sanborn.

The other members of the Board, without being able to devote much time and attention to the great work imposed upon them, have nevertheless been associated long enough with those officers, and have co-operated closely enough with them, to be able to testify to the intelligence, the earnestness, and the industry with which they have discharged their duty.

Truly it is creditable to the Commonwealth that, for the honor of serving her, and the cause of humanity, such men have been willing to work with all their heart, and soul, and

PRELIMINARY.

strength, so many years, for a pecuniary return far less than their ability, energy and honesty, would have commanded in other callings.

With these prefatory remarks which seem to the Board but faint praise, and imperfect expression of the feelings of its members, it proceeds with its FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT.

Five years ago the Legislature appointed this Board "to investigate and supervise the whole Public Charitable and Correctional Institutions of the Commonwealth," under the name of the Board of State Charities.

The comprehensiveness of the name is significant. There are the paupers, the infirm, the insane, the defective, the vicious and the criminal; and they are all to be considered and treated as subjects of that charity which is the greatest of virtues and "the end of the commandment."

DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT.

I.-Crime and its punishment.
II.-Charity and its administration.

I. When people cease to exercise the right of personal selfdefence, they delegate to Government the administration of justice between man and man; and there is none to ask why do ye so?

Government alone may try to imitate the plan of divine justice, which attaches inseparable consequences to vice, sin and crime, by adding to those natural consequences certain legal pains and penalties.

But when the people delegate to Government the performance of those duties of charity and brotherly love which belong to each individual, then some arise and question the wisdom of the policy.

II. It would be amiss to discuss here, at any length, the soundness of the principle of Public Charity; that is, the assumption by the State, or by municipalities, in a corporate capacity, of those charitable offices which nature and Christianity declare to belong to the individual, and of which he cannot

FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT, 1868.

wholly divest himself without damage to his soul and harm to the cause of true charity. It is meet, however, to bear in mind the unfavorable tendencies of the system of public charity enforced by taxation, its liability to weaken the sources of private charity, and the necessity of restricting its extension within the narrowest limits.

We should not forget that legal public charity, in any form, is a poor substitute for personal charity. It is bread, but unleavened by the sentiment of love. It is as salt which has lost part of its savor. It may, moreover, be so administered as to dry up the sources of true charity in the hearts of the people; and the farther off from their immediate hands is the application of their gifts, the more likely this is to happen.

He who from kindly impulse gives a loaf, or a day's work, to a poor man, savors his gift with that charity which makes it more grateful to the recipient, and returns to himself in blessing which increases with every repetition, and makes him spiritually richer. None of the spiritual essence of the gift, none of that which makes it true charity, is lost in the transfer, when the parties come face to face.

The transfer, too, is made more economically, for a man will naturally see that the most is made of his loaf. The farther off we get from this mode of charity, the less satisfactory, less effectual, less frugal it becomes.

If the giver sends his wife, or his daughter, as his trusty almoner, a little of the virtue is lost to him; if he delegates the duty to the parish, to the county, to the State, the more costly it becomes in every way, spiritually and materially. The loaf which he gave with his own hand, costing but a penny, may cost a sixpence before it reaches the receiver. Nay! it may be that delegated charity ceases to be sanctified to the giver; so that although he may draw his checks for thousands to feed and clothe the poor, he will not find it written down in Christ's account that he gave even a cup of cold water to one of his little ones.

Viewed from the stand-point of religion, it may be said that charity is an assumption by the State of part of the

luties of the citizens. Now, if the State may assume

PUBLIC CHARITY.

some of those duties, why not others? If a part, why not the whole? Why should not the State do our other religious duties for us as well as our alms-giving?

Public legalized charity tends to divorce love from duty. We are great sticklers for individual rights. We guard them scrupulously against any encroachment on the part of the State. To be consistent, we should stickle as much for individual duties, and not allow the State to assume the performance of any of them which we ourselves can possibly perform. That they can be performed in a highly civilized community without legal enforcement, so that the poor shall not suffer, has been made clear by history.

We not only can perform them, but we are prompted to do so by instinctive yearnings which are pained by disappointments. We are constantly embarrassed in the pursuit of happiness by that natural tie which binds us to our neighbor, and which will not let us be entirely contented with our possessions, nor entirely happy in our enjoyments, while he lacks and suffers. Under the sentiment of charity is the democratic element which prompts to equalize human conditions by lifting up to our own level of being and of enjoyment, those who are farthest below it.

This instinct pervades the poor as well as the rich; the wretched as well as the happy. It seemed heroic in Sidney, while choked with the death-thirst, to pass the cup of water to the soldier dying by his side; but humanity abounds in such heroism. It is seen among the poor and destitute, who seek to raise to their own level those whom special misfortune has reduced even below them. It feeds the myriad little rills of charity through which the multitudinous poor contribute more to the common fund of brotherly love than the few rich. The sum total of widows' unseen mites, is greater than that of published bequests and formal gifts.

Visitors among our poor, in the vilest streets, frequently find that some sufferer has been relieved by the offerings of others almost as destitute as himself. Even criminals under sentence contrive ways to share their little luxuries with a fellow prisoner who has forfeited his own by misconduct.

FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT, 1868.

The habitual use of these natural sources of charity gives to them abundant growth, while disuse dries them up. Had the widow kept her cruse upright waiting for some great occasion, it would have been exhausted by the first use; but the habitual drain created the perpetual fountain.

Of course, in large communities, private charity needs to be carefully organized. This can be done in such wise as to promote sympathetic relations between rich and poor, and to reduce to a minimum both suffering and beggary.

The Israelites in London, and the Friends in our country, give us valuable lessons in this matter.

There is a tendency with us to limit the immediate agency of the State, and to direct what aid it gives through associations of individuals; and this seems wise.

At any rate, there are considerations which make some persons question the wisdom of the institution of legalized public charity enforced by taxation; and which should make all thoughtful about its use, cautious about its extension, and watchful against its abuses.

Our State has partially adopted this system; and we should resolve that, if it is not the best that can be devised, it shall be well administered.

This Board is charged by law "to investigate and supervise the whole public charitable and correctional institutions of the Commonwealth, and to recommend changes," &c. This cannot be done without some definite notions about the social conditions which call such establishments into existence.

A few general remarks upon the subject will therefore be hazarded, at the risk of uttering what some may consider to be useless speculations, others to be mere truisms.

Social Relations.

We cannot question the existence nor doubt the wisdom of those innate dispositions which draw individuals into close social relations. We cannot abolish them if we would; we ought not if we could; but we can subordinate them to reason, and direct and co-ordinate their action, because they are not (except